Fabulae Romanae is a body of work by the artist duo Lucy + Jorge Orta that takes the viewer on a symbolic excursus across the city of Rome, drawn from archaeological and historical research conducted by the artists and their observations on the cultural and social map of FABULAE the city and its seven hills. Starting from the most cherished form of the artists duo’s language: the tent, Dome Dwelling and accompanied by the protagonists of their research the Spirits, who take on the form of ethereal and mysterious figures that inhabit the city. This publication brings together the installation of Lucy + Jorge Orta’s work in MAXXI, the National Museum of XXI Century Arts in Rome and the video performance in which the contemporary sentinel Spirits silently explore the Roman city accompanied by the poetic ROMANAE verses of Mario Petrucci: we encounter the Traveler under the Castel Sant’Angelo bridge and in the Trastevere back streets; the Observer overlooking the Sacro Cuore dei Monti and the Isola Tiberina; the Tunneler and the Myth Maker in the Villa Gregoriana Park; the Flying Man, Chariot Rider, Memory Man, Bale Maker… Fabulae Romanae assumes the meaning of “homage” to Rome and was commissioned by LUCY+JORGE ORTA ZegnArt with the curatoral advisor by Maria-Luisia Frisa. FABULAE ROMANAE FABULAE JORGE ORTA + LUCY 5 Foreword by ermenegildo Zegna 7 Foreword by Anna Mattirolo 8 wANderLUST by Maria Luisa Frisa 22 MUSeUM INSTALLATIoN 24 FAILING BeTTer by Gianni Biondillo 46 VIdeo PerForMANCe 48 FABULAe ROMANAe poetry by Mario Petrucci 52 FABULAe ROMANAe by Lucy + Jorge orta 86 story BoArd 88 dIe NoNI PoPULo roMANo QUIrITIBUS Compitalia erUNT by Alessandra Mammì 118 IMAGe CAPTIoNS 120 BIoGrAPHy Lucy + Jorge orta FABULAE ROMANAE Coordination Photographs © 2012 Ermenegildo Zegna LUCY + JORGE ORTA Camilla Palestra Paul Bevan Holditalia S.p.A. Luigia Lonardelli – MAXXI Arte Giovanni Caccamo www.zegnart.com Matteo Ferrario – ZegnArt Matteo Piazza © the artists for the artworks MAXXI www.studio-orta.com National Museum of XXI ZegnArt press office Graphic design © the authors for the texts Century Arts, Rome Giulia Pessina Ellen Gögler – www.npeg.fr © 2012 by Marsilio Editori March 22 – September 23, Paola Manfredi s.p.a. in Venice 2012 Front cover image part of MAXXI Arte Collezione We would like to thank The Observer, Lucy+Jorge First edition: July 2012 TRIDIMENSIONALE The Ermenegildo Zegna team Orta, 2012 for its support in the research Photo: Paul Bevan ISBN: 978-88-317-1338 Curated by and realization of www.marsilioeditori.it Maria Luisa Frisa the Fabulae Romanae project. Back cover image Sketch book drawing, All rights reserved. No part A commission by Special thanks to Lucy+Jorge Orta, 2012 of this publication may be FAI––Fondo Ambiente Italiano reproduced or transmitted and Villa Gregoriana Park in any form or by any means, Special Project electronic or mechanical Catalogue edited by (including photocopying, In collaboration with Maria Luisa Frisa recording or any information The Centre for Sustainable Lucy Orta storage or retrieval system), Fashion without prior permission in London College Translations writing from the publisher. of Fashion Huw Evans STORY BOARD 86 87 DIE NONI POPULO On the ninth day the Roman people, The Flying Man. From the spiral staircase on the spyglass. There where the hill slopes steeply down to ROMANO the Quirites, will celebrate the Compitalia Quirinal Hill that the architect Borromini rolled up in the Tiber. That same height was scaled by the oracles This is how the festival dedicated to wandering spirits stone for the palace of the Barberini family emerges a to observe the flight of flocks of birds and make QUIRITIBUS was announced in Rome. Lares squatting at crossroads floating spirit. It is wearing a sort of silver-gray-black- predictions to generals and emperors. There on the to which it was prudent to pay homage as they also white-blue parachute. A baroque unfurling of tough hill called the Aventine, “ab avibus,” because of all the COMPITALIA held sway over people’s destinies. In the celebratory and light nylon, and at the same time a tribute to the birds that flew up from the river to roost. rituals of the Compitalia, fates mingled at crossroads goddess of health who in the time of the Quirites, long Sic transit gloria mundi. The spirits do not believe in and slaves were liberated. They became masters for a before the Barberini and the presidential palace, lived earthly power. Another creature descends from the ERUNT day. Then from forks and junctions in roads those minor right here. On the highest hill in her now vanished equestrian monument on the Capitol. The symbol of by ALESSANDRA MAMMÌ deities blew right through the city and the Quirites, temple. Thus the fables of the Orta begin to take the glory that eternally dominates nature, controlling as the citizens of Rome were called, mollified them by shape, giving form to the spirits. the energy of horses and the destiny of men, becomes hanging woolen dolls from the doors of their houses The Memory Man. He drags his snake bundle through “The Chair-iot Rider.” Puppet horseman, ironic and or offering honey cakes to slaves. And then the slaves the alleys of the Viminal Hill, on whose boundary was curious. He rides under the bridges with a wooden hung up offerings too. But they were not allowed to use once located the Subura, home to the Roman lower prosthesis in the shape of a chair. He trots along the human figures. So to pay homage to the Lares who had classes, the decaying part of the city, the favela of the walls displaying a mock horse’s head made of paper set them free they could only hang rolled-up pieces emperors. maché. And conquers today’s crossroads, renamed of cloth or balls or bundles of wool. All this happened The Myth Maker. He is dressed in idols knitted out traffic circles and islands, amidst the honking and in the times of the Tarquin kings, in honor of the Lares of wool, covered with masks hanging on the back and roaring of the motors of the new world. A blithe spirit. Compitales, little gods who had hidden themselves on the front like the woolen dolls that were hung from the Happy to have lost his power, bronze horse and the roads at the points where they met. This at least doors of houses during the Compitalia. There on the insignia but at last be free to go around the city. is the story told over the centuries by Dionysius of Palatine, the hill on which stand the ruins and vestiges Halicarnassus, Macrobius, Aulus Gellius and Cicero. of those dwellings that the spirits have protected over The Journey the course of time, leaving for us the sight of their Among all the spirits that inhabit these modern Over the centuries of ancient Rome many spirits biscuit-colored walls, immersed in greenery, woven in Fabulae Romane The Traveller is a guide, as “Wanderer- appeared and disappeared: good ones, bad ones and the diamonds of “opus reticulatum.” Migrant-Farewell Border-Hoarder-Gatherer-Vagrant.” all of them inevitable. The Numina for instance: gods The Bale Maker. He crosses the Esquiline, the largest Lucy + Jorge Orta have dressed him in a black coat of the moment without a face or history. The Penates: hill in Rome, carrying with him bales of cloth tied up with a collar so high that his gloomy face is half- guardians of the family and the homes. The Lares: with string and labeled with stamps, to be delivered hidden, while the overcoat is turned into a tiring mass spirits of ancestors who whispered good advice on how to a mysterious recipient. Perhaps an address hidden of suitcases equipped with handles and buckles. A not to fritter away a fortune in dreams. The Lemures: amongst the new communities of Chinese and 20th-century, archaic, Kafkaesque figure. Who is the spirits of the nights, souls of the dead who had not Africans who have now, in these global times, occupied symbolic traveler on this contemporary Grand Tour found peace, vampires, larvae, ghosts able to torment its stores, markets and slopes. that Jorge and Lucy have embarked on in their descent the living to the point where they drove them mad. And Between the myrtle bushes of the ancient park of the toward the eternal city? then the Nymphs, those invisible creatures who took Coelian Hill glides The Tunneller with her enormous That symbolic and fundamental journey was in a way care of the details. One named Carna was there just to hank of white yarn, or rather the color of nothing, and inaugurated in 1670 by a Catholic priest called Richard protect the hinges of doors... twisted so many times that it looks like a soft hawser Lassels, a tutor and guide on physical and spiritual wrapped around the nymph until it almost suffocates excursions. But above all author of The Voyage Of Italy, The Spirits of the Hills her. And in its disproportionate size she even hides her or A compleat journey through Italy. It was Lassels’s In Lucy + Jorge Orta’s Fabulae Romanae many spirits human form. book that persuaded the British aristocracy (and then appear and disappear. At least seven, one for each hill An oracle (The Observer) watches the world from the that of Germany and the rest of Northern Europe) certainly, and then more. Lucy + Jorge have imagined Aventine. His head has turned into a helmet and two that a journey south in the direction of the cradle of them, looked for and found them, studied, drawn and optical proboscises of a dark and dull red extend from a mother civilization was an essential stage in the constructed them and finally dressed them.